The words flowed quite easily off the tongue of first-year Siena Heights University men's basketball coach Joe Pechota after his team opened the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference season Saturday with a 63-56 win over Aquinas.

"We're not pretty, but I'll take this one."

Pechota outlined the short- and long-range goals for the team after watching his players make little strides with each appearance so far this season.

"We've got to work on our practice habits and we need the positive carryover from those practices to the games," he said. "Get rid of the old habits."

Siena Heights had to battle hard for 40 minutes to chalk up this win, despite Aquinas coming into the game with a 1-4 record.

Siena was 9-for-15 down the stretch from the free throw line as Aquinas fired up 3-pointer after 3-pointer trying to catch up. The Saints of Grand Rapids made three of their triples in the final 2:32 to stay close.

There were very few significant runs in this contest, but a small run in the first half put Siena Heights in good standing going into halftime.

Up by three midway through the first half, Siena Heights went on a 10-3 run near the end of the half, punctuated by a steal and one-handed slam dunk by junior Ryan Hopson with 12 seconds left before the break.

"We're not the kind of team who can score a bunch of points in a short time to extend our lead," Pechota said. "We depend on our hard work and tenacious play to get big leads.

"What I really liked tonight is that we played very hard; you've got to appreciate that. We won 50-50 balls, and we were really physical on the boards.

"We were plus-8 on the boards, and that was something we didn't do in our last two games. Little by little, we're eliminating our mistakes and good things are going to happen because of that."

Siena Heights led by 10 points early in the second half, and then took advantage of eight straight Aquinas possessions that resulted in just two points as the local Saints boosted their bulge to 19 points at 43-24 on a 15-foot jumper by Cecil Clark.

SHU was able to maintain a comfortable lead until Aquinas made a final push to get within six a couple times down the stretch.

"We've got to do a better job putting games away at the (free throw) line," said Pechota. "That's really the only thing that was upsetting. We're not going to run past anybody, so we have to make the most of our chances at the line."

The win was the first in four tries for Siena Heights (1-3), who outscored Aquinas 26-8 from the bench and 29-12 in the paint.

Page 2 of 2 - Hopson led Siena Heights with 19 points, while Donovan Campbell, who recently earned first-team all-conference honors as a tight end on the football team, added 16 points off the bench. Clark grabbed a team-high nine rebounds.